More about Alexander...

[fajrdrako]

I just came back from seeing Alexander again, this time with lmondegreen, who hadn't seen it yet. I was glad she wanted to.

Seeing it a second time did a lot to clarify my thoughts about it, both good and bad. One thing that was fun: when I saw it last week, it had been decades since I'd read the history of Alexander's time, and since I'd read Mary Renault's novels about him. Yes, I've been reading about Greece and Greeks, but Homer and Herodotus are considerably earlier - it didn't help!

In the last week I've been reading The Persian Boy again and it has done much to clarify my memory of names, events and places - at least the Mary Renault version. Over suppertime, I was reading the scene where Alexander has had Philotas and Parmenios put to death, and then turns to Bagoas afterwards. It struck me how close the Oliver Stone scene is to the Mary Renault scene there: I'd read in reviews that Stone had borrowed concepts and scenes from the Renault novels, but I hadn't specifically noticed what they were. This was delightfully parallel: Alexander distressed, pacing, writing letters, feverishly going over his papers, and then getting comfort from Bagoas. The biggest difference is that in the novel, Bagoas comforts Alexander with words as well as sex, talking to him about kingly duties and his own fidelity. The movie Bagoas never says a word in our hearing. I rather liked that.

This time round I played a game: 'spot Hephaistion' and 'spot Bagoas'. It's remarkable how much they are present - Bagoas especially, in beautiful clothes, standing gracefully in the background, except for the times he's in the foreground. At the end of the movie I wondered where Bagoas went: one minute he's mopping the dying Alexander's brow, the next minute the Greek lords are fighting over the corpse and he is nowhere to be seen. In the book, didn't he throw himself over Alexander's body to protect it?

When I saw the movie the first time, I was surprised that we first encountered Bagoas in Darius' harem. Then I thought: well, of course, where else would a king's eunuch be? On rereading The Persian Boy I realized why I found it strange: Mary Renault makes it clear that in her version Bagoas was never in the harem, and in fact feared and dreaded a future in which he might have to go into the harem, if the King didn't want him any more - like a sort of royal pension plan. I find this puzzling. Since Bagoas' only function at court is to sleep with the King, isn't that precisely the role of people in the harem? So why wasn't he there? Why is he different? Why does he have his own room, his own horse, his own inexplicable status, and a fair degree of freedom? Perhaps just so Mary Renault can describe things that Bagoas would never see from the harem. Or perhaps to emphasize his pride. In terms of story, I suppose one could postulate that Darius honoured Bagoas as the former heir of a Persian lord, since his father had died honourably in service to the crown. I'm enjoying trying to guess Mary Renault's reasons for writing various things the way she did, and the reasons for her historical interpretations.

If anything, I loved the movie a second time even more than the first. At the same time its flaws are glaring - it's a magnificent failure, lavish in its scope, but with a storyline that is confusing, muddled and unevenly paced. Stone gives us so many Alexander themes that the man gets lost under the weight of it all - is he Oedipus, Achilles, Herakles, or Jason? Is he the first modern man, or a unique genius, or the victim of his times? Is he the quintessential Greek, the Macedonian hero, or a crosscultural hero who transcends ethnicity? Is he a loner at the top, or the man who has many loves? These are all very distinct ideas and if the movie had stuck to any one of them, I might have understood what it was trying to say. But Alexander can't be all of these things at once - not if the movie is to be coherent at all - and I was left more confused than ever about what he was, what moved him, and why he was so successful. He comes across as mostly confused. (Or maybe that was me.) Certainly the sense of military genius disappeared: as far as I could tell, all the battles were pretty much free-for-alls. It took me till the second viewing to be able to recognize all the generals by face and name. Well, almost all - was the gent wth the nice smile, the beard, and the Persian clothes supposed to be Roxana's brother, or did I just imagine that? What was his name?

I liked Hephaistion a lot better this time, but I wish he'd had more of a voice in the scenes with the Generals and I wish he'd kissed Alexander at least once.

I talked about things I liked last time, here are a few things I really didn't like:

• The recurring image of the eagle. It just didn't work for me at all. Hokey.


• The Oedipal incest theme. If the whole movie had been about Alexander's relationship with his parents (or with either one of them) it would have been fine, but there was too much going on emotionally and I found it intrusive.


• The pronunciation of Boukephalos as "Busephalos".


• The non-chronogological parts. I can see why the death of Phillip was explained to match the death of Cleitus, but I thought it made the theme muddier rather than clearer, and it certainly made the timeline more confusing.


• The battle in India, with the exaggerated wounding scene and the misplaced death of Boukephalos. The special effects were great, but they made the whole incident seem anticlimactic.

And I still have mixed feelings on a few items: the wedding-night sex scene, some of the Alexander/Hephaistion dialogue (when it sounds as if they're making speeches to each other), the choreography of the death of Philip. Most of all I have mixed feelings about Colin Farrell's portrayal of Alexander - looks, acting, style - did he manage to become the historical Alexander in my eyes? Not quite. Almost. Maybe. Was he a great charismatic leader? No. Was he attractive? ...Often.

Loved, absolutely loved, the costumes, sets, and landscapes.

My biggest problem with the movie: it seemed as if Oliver Stone was making the movie to explain and make apologies for Alexander's failure. But when I look at Alexander's life, it doesn't look like a failure to me, it looks like a success. The movie did not convince me otherwise.

I came home in a heavy snowstorm. The bus had some trouble with every slope, and my walk from the bus stop had me walking against the wind with my hood wrapped so tight around my face that I could hardly see a thing. Couldn't see anything anyway, actually. Got home safe and sound: I wonder how much snow will be on the ground tomorrow.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Francisco Bosch stood in as an icon, a tangible homage for us to pin our Renaultisms onto.

Absolutely! And even if we were not Renault fans, he becomes a symbol of the exotic east, or of mystery, or of Persian decadence, or of Alexander's ideals of intercultural/erotic understanding, or the goals of artistic expression and peaceful leisure, or whatever. I liked all of those implications. This is a case where his use of a symbol (or of a person as a symbol) worked well.

And I am already complaining because Stone put too many heavy themes into his story: I think he also had way too many characters. To make Bagoas another speaking character would have just made an already-diverse story even looser, more complicated.

And as a Bagoas fan and a Renault fan - Bagoas is far too deep, rich and interesting as a character to be relegated to a small role in a big movie. I thought the degree of inclusion/exclusion was just right.

Mary Renault makes her use of Bagoas' role at the Persian court plausible enough. I find it interesting, that's all.

Of course, I don't know a thing about how the Persian court functioned.

Does anyone? In that era? I suspect not. I suspect most of it is speculation, based on later courts and later cultures.

I like Renault's choice if only because it spares us from the claustrophobic womanly intrigue of the harem.

And because it gives Bagoas more freedom to report to us about what's going on around him, and it makes him unique as a figure. It's something on which he can pin his pride.

Prometheus! I knew I'd forgotten someone last night. Yes, indeed Prometheus. I thought actually that Prometheus was the best allegorical fit of all to Alexander's life, but I also found it a little obscure as to exactly how Stone was making the analogy. I'd have been happy if he'd taken the Prometheus imagery and stuck with it, if he'd made a point of it and shelved the other analogies.

...and other times he looked like a hairy caterpillar monkey creature. *g*

Yes. Actually this was a bit of a problem. I was trying to deny or ignore it but it's there. It not just a problem with Alexander: there were quite a few actors (and actresses) there who looks I didn't like or whom I found unattractive, when it would have been better for the story if I'd liked their looks. This was especially true of the twelve-year-old Alexander, I didn't like the actor's looks - but also Roxana. I suspect Oliver Stone and I have very different aesthetic tastes when it comes to human beings. The ones I thought attractive turned out to be a mixed bag, and not necessarily characters we were meant to like - Cassander, for example, and Cleitus.

As I've said elsewhere, it really just made me want a The Persian Boy movie with virtually everything the same, except a script writer who can write and a director who can, um. Well, direct a bit differently.

I agree absolutely and would add: also a different actor in the Alexander role. Not that Colin Farrell was bad; sometimes he was very good indeed. But he was generally... problematic.

[ifeelfinite.livejournal.com]

I wish JRM had gotten a bigger role than Cassander. Unless Cassander had a semi-big role. Did he?

I can't really make comments on the rest since I haven't seen the movie, so I'll stay out of that ;)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Sadly, no. Cassander has some great moments but I couldn't say he has a big role. There are so many characters that he gets lost in the crowd most of the time.

I hope you enjoy the movie as much as I did, when you do see it, and I hope to hear your reactions.